In today’s concrete jungle, architect Christopher Benninger’s (1942-2024) human-centric work shines

I had known of Christopher Benninger and his work in the field of architecture and city planning even before I first met him 10 years ago, at the office of the Mumbai Port Trust. He was a member of the committee appointed by the Ministry of Shipping to devise a preliminary policy to use port land that was lying unutilised. I was an urban planning consultant with an infrastructure thinktank.

We hit it off immediately. He was aware of my research paper on Mumbai Port Trust. I also told him about my Marathi translation of Cities for People, the illustrated book by the legendary urban planner Jan Gehl. Benninger presented me with his book, Letters to Young Architects, telling me that it had been translated into Gujarati and Chinese. He asked if I could translate it to Marathi.

The book was a collection of his lectures and articles. It was a window into his thinking about architecture as a profession, how he, as a student, had been influenced by The Natural House by Frank Lloyd Wright and how architecture had become his profession and his life path.

Benninger has described his own life as a journey through four “ashrams”. I was sad when he passed away at the age of 81...

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